Latest news

On the 4th of January 2019, Oslo held the European Green Capital 2019 Opening and Handover Ceremony to officially kick off its European Green Capital year. The Ceremony took place in Oslo’s iconic City Hall and was fully packed to receive guest speakers Mayor of Oslo, Marianne Borgen; Governing Mayor of Oslo, Raymond Johansen; European Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella; Mayor of Nijmegen and European Green Capital 2018, Hubert Bruls; and Oslo’s Vice Mayor for Environment and Transport, Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, amongst others. [...]

In light of the latest IPCC assessment report, which states that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees requires rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, 20 cities from across Europe – members of the European Green Capital Network – have come together to sign a joint call for action to enhance sustainability […]

Green Cities Fit for Life

Image by M Hjälm

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Club International Conference

19th September 2013, Brussels

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Club International Conference will take place at the Palais des Académies in Brussels this September. The one-day event is being organised by the EPR Club, a platform for exchange and debate about Extended Producer Responsibility in Europe; and Brussels Environment, the public administration of the environment and energy in Brussels Region. The conference will provide insights on the future of Extender Producer Responsibility Systems in the field of waste management.

EPR Club describes the term Extended Producer Responsibility as an environmental policy approach in which the producer’s responsibility for reducing environmental impact and managing the product is extended across the whole life cycle of the product, from selection of materials and design to its end-of-life, and especially for their take-back, recycling and disposal. Therefore, EPR can be considered as an important tool towards an efficient resource management across Europe.

In order to give the latest trends in EPR, the conference will address the following themes in the four scheduled sessions:

EPR schemes in Europe – an overview

EPR and prevention

Economical aspects and competition law

What can and should be done at the European level?

The programme includes relevant questions in these four topics, as well as keynote speakers and experts debating in order to give the attendants a broad outlook on the recent trends in EPR. The full programme is available here.

Waste Management and European Green Capital

The selection of the European Green Capital Award is based on 12 environmental indicator areas evaluated by an expert panel. Waste production and management is one of these indicators assessed, and Brussels, finalist of the European Green Capital Award 2015, received very good marks in this area.

The panel highlighted that Brussels has not only made good progress on reducing waste generation per capita (20 % reduction since 2000) but its recycling levels have also been improved by the compulsory sorting of household waste which was introduced in 2010 (16 % in 2000 to 31 % in 2010). The capital of Europe has set a recycling target of 50 % for 2020. The city had extended producer responsibility to cover oils and greases, tyres, medication and photographic waste, in addition to streams prescribed under EU Legislation.